Coping During A Major Renovation (With Minor Stress)

Let’s face facts, it stressful for anyone making renovations to their home. After all, there is an abundance of issues that could go wrong. Whether it’s financial, or it’s just the fact that you’re living with piles of rubble for month after month. But, when you are doing your best to minimise this anxiety, are there any ways for you to cope, or do you have to live with this lumber in the living room?

Plan Everything

Really? Yes! You have to plan everything to the letter, whether this is finding the right builder for your needs, or looking at the materials and seeing how much you physically need so you can cut back on every penny, by planning everything, before you call the builders in, will give you a sense of control over the situation. One of the biggest reasons we get stressed out is because we have no control over the situation, in which case, you’ll have to plan everything to a T.

Minimising Clutter

Renovations are notoriously messy, and if you get stressed out by piles of cement, rubble, and you’ve not been able to access your kitchen sink for the vast majority of the day, then you will have to find a sense of order amongst the chaos. If you have an abundance of furniture, antiques, and things that you rather not get covered in dirt, putting them into storage won’t just help you to minimise clutter, but you may save yourself some collateral damage.

Find Some Stress Relief Techniques

If you find yourself stressed, find ways to minimise this as much as possible. If you can’t control the external factors, then it’s time to focus on the internal ones. Calming down can be easily done, and in fact, there is a fantastic breathing technique called Box Breathing that you can do. All you do is breath in for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, breathe out for 4 seconds, and go without air in the lungs for, you guessed it, 4 seconds! Just be sure not to do it when there’s dust in the air!

Create A Backup Plan

Contingencies are essential, especially if there are things that happen beyond your control. For example, the builder falls ill and you have to get another one, or planning approval that you thought would be accepted without issue has caused you to go back and forth to the council, you need contingency plans should the worst case scenario arise. One of the best plans, not just to save you money, but to save your sanity, is to do the renovationbit by bit. One of the biggest mistakes that we make when we decide to change everything from top to bottom is that it’s a vast undertaking, and our wallets are hit hard.

Minimising the stress of renovation easier said than done, but it’s a combination valve understanding what you can control, and what you can’t. The things you can’t control are numerous, but when there are things that threaten to overwhelm you, that is when you have to start learning how to calm down.

Beth Davidson
Beth is a busy Mum to 1 teen, 1 tween, and 3 under 5. Needless to say it's never quiet at home. She loves to read, write, plan, and research her family history, and often finds a way to combine all four.